E8400 motherboard: non SLI/CF, 6SATA. what to choose?

[Midnight Rambler]

The reason I wanted them all off of the south bridge is because I have a lot of experience with such configurations and using a third party controller consistently causes problems

A point well made too. The now-infamous JMicron controller sux canal water ...

 

[Wirrunna]

Taltamir, I have the same HDD requirements as you, and am heading towards the GA P35 DS3P as it has firewire connection.
There have been some interesting posts on the ICH9R chip in Raid 5 performance - http://episteme.arstechnica.co...4609792/m/768003988831 and http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=5370084
I hope you will post setup details (disks, stripe size etc) and your experience with the Raid5.

 

[taltamir]

raid5 is the absolute worst thing you could ever do to yourself.

RAID5 is INORDINATELY SLOW on anything except a 200+$ controller.

RAID5 provides a higher chance of loosing your data then a single hard drive. In the three weeks I had a raid5 the raid info was lost 3 times. I had to do delete the array, then construct an IDENTICAL array (with the exact same stripe size and same hard disk ORDER) and tell it to NOT initialize the array (format) so that it would retain the data. It happen so:
1. I reset cmos because of a bios update. It then only saw 3 degraded arrays.
2. My roommate tested a part in my computer (we agreed to allow each other to do this) and reset my cmos.
3. I don't remember how exactly.
Also a drive got unplugged by accident and it degraded the array and wated to reconstruct on the third drive (tremendous stress for the drives)...

I have been using two individual raid1 arrays and they are a blast. I moved the drives from an nforce4 board to an nforce2, and then to an nforce5... and all detected the array instantly as a healthy array.
I have unplugged a drive, it showed as degraded, i replugged the drive and it turn to healthy without needlessly reconstructing.
I can move an individual drive to a non raid controller and it is seen as a single drive with meaningful content.

RAID1 is the only way to go... oh yea, and it writes at the same speed and reads at twice the speed of a single drive.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: taltamir
raid5 is the absolute worst thing you could ever do to yourself.

RAID5 is INORDINATELY SLOW on anything except a 200+$ controller.

RAID5 provides a higher chance of loosing your data then a single hard drive. In the three weeks I had a raid5 the raid info was lost 3 times. I had to do delete the array, then construct an IDENTICAL array (with the exact same stripe size and same hard disk ORDER) and tell it to NOT initialize the array (format) so that it would retain the data. It happen so:
1. I reset cmos because of a bios update. It then only saw 3 degraded arrays.
2. My roommate tested a part in my computer (we agreed to allow each other to do this) and reset my cmos.
3. I don't remember how exactly.
Also a drive got unplugged by accident and it degraded the array and wated to reconstruct on the third drive (tremendous stress for the drives)...

I have been using two individual raid1 arrays and they are a blast. I moved the drives from an nforce4 board to an nforce2, and then to an nforce5... and all detected the array instantly as a healthy array.
I have unplugged a drive, it showed as degraded, i replugged the drive and it turn to healthy without needlessly reconstructing.
I can move an individual drive to a non raid controller and it is seen as a single drive with meaningful content.

RAID1 is the only way to go... oh yea, and it writes at the same speed and reads at twice the speed of a single drive.

And just so you all know, the BIG boys (san storage) use Raid 0 + 1, 2 drives in raid 0 and 2more just like it, and the pairs in raid 1 (could be the other way around...), so 4 drives, with the capacity of 2, but the best speed, and the best dependability. We probably have over a petabyte of it at work....

 

[taltamir]

was that "big boys" an insult directed at me? I am asking because I am not sure...

RAID 0+1 would have been awesome. But I only buy drives when I fill the previous ones... so my 500GB raid array was followed by a 750GB raid array. I am getting close... so sometime in the next 6 monthes or so I will run out of space and replace my 500GB RAID1 array with a 1TB array. That or buy a new case and add in a third array. My new motherboard is gonna have 8SATA plugs so its possible.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: taltamir
was that "big boys" an insult directed at me? I am asking because I am not sure...

RAID 0+1 would have been awesome. But I only buy drives when I fill the previous ones... so my 500GB raid array was followed by a 750GB raid array. I am getting close... so sometime in the next 6 monthes or so I will run out of space and replace my 500GB RAID1 array with a 1TB array.

The big boys is simply a comment on the large data centers that spend millions on disk storage that must be fast and dependable... PERIOD.

 

[taltamir]

ah ok.. I wasn't sure since you can't hear tone of voice when reading what someone typed.

That RAID 0+1 sure is a sweet deal though...

 

[Markfw]

Addendum... Here is wikipedia:
* RAID 0+1: striped sets in a mirrored set (minimum 4 disks; even number of disks) provides fault tolerance and improved performance but increases complexity. The key difference from RAID 1+0 is that RAID 0+1 creates a second striped set to mirror a primary striped set. The array continues to operate with one or more drives failed in the same mirror set, but if two or more drives fail on different sides of the mirroring, the data on the RAID system is lost.

* RAID 1+0: mirrored sets in a striped set (minimum 4 disks; even number of disks) provides fault tolerance and improved performance but increases complexity. The key difference from RAID 0+1 is that RAID 1+0 creates a striped set from a series of mirrored drives. In a failed disk situation RAID 1+0 performs better and is more fault tolerant than RAID 0+1. The array can sustain multiple drive losses as long as no two drives lost comprise a single pair of one mirror.

I think its 1 + 0 that is used in the SAN arrays.....

 

[taltamir]

oh, I thought they were the other way around...

Anyways, a little update. I have received an email that my motherboard shipped and will be delivered to me on the 29th before 4:30pm

 

[Doclife]

Originally posted by: taltamir
oh, I thought they were the other way around...

Anyways, a little update. I have received an email that my motherboard shipped and will be delivered to me on the 29th before 4:30pm

What memory are you planning to use with this mobo/CPU combo ?

 

[taltamir]

I currently own this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16820220227

I figured that since I already own it, I might as well see what it can do with the E8400...

 

[Mondoman]

If you're cheap, you can still pick up good quality used RAID 5 controller cards on ebay. The Megaraid i4 runs about $70 (but of course it's a PATA card). Here's the article on building such a system: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/27840/77/
However, I was pleased with how easily I was able to upgrade from a 2-drive RAID 1 array to a 4-drive RAID 1+0 array on my nVidia-based MB, even with the two pairs of drives having slightly different capacities.

 

[taltamir]

where am I gonna find PATA drives to use with that card?

And the different capacities doesn't mean its difficult to raid, it just means that raiding them wastes space. I would loose 250GB if I switched from two RAID1 to a raid1+0... and I am not eager to try and migrate such a setup between motherboards.

 

[Mondoman]

There are still plenty of PATA drives around -- just wait for Fry's and newegg specials. I bought mine about a year ago, so I got four 400GB drives.